Sultan Azlan Shah tournament

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ssp
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Re: Sultan Azlan Shah tournament

Post by ssp »

Today, we beat the Irish 4-1. Typical inconsistency that has plagued our teams for decades. It seems we have one really terrible performance per tournament, where we mess up in style.

Before the start of this tournament, I was hoping for a 3/4th place. I suspect Sardar will be made the scapegoat and this could be the end of his career. He seems slow and quite quite a few times, the opposition players just seemed to run past him too easily. Sad to see this from arguably our best player since the mid 70s!

The non performers- Talwinder and Uthappa will get yet more chances and I expect Mandeep to return and waste another place in the squad.
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Re: Sultan Azlan Shah tournament

Post by rajitghosh »

ssp wrote: Sat Mar 10, 2018 11:21 am Today, we beat the Irish 4-1. Typical inconsistency that has plagued our teams for decades. It seems we have one really terrible performance per tournament, where we mess up in style.

Before the start of this tournament, I was hoping for a 3/4th place. I suspect Sardar will be made the scapegoat and this could be the end of his career. He seems slow and quite quite a few times, the opposition players just seemed to run past him too easily. Sad to see this from arguably our best player since the mid 70s!

The non performers- Talwinder and Uthappa will get yet more chances and I expect Mandeep to return and waste another place in the squad.
Best player since the 70s? I suppose you never watched Dhanraj Pillay play or the likes of Mohammad Shahid, MM Sommaiya and Merwyn Fenandes. Even Pargat Singh was better than Sardar Singh. This is with due respect to Sardar Singh taking nothing away from his achievements. The players I mentioned played in an era where competition in Asia itself was much tougher with a superb Pakistani team and a really good Korean team.
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Re: Sultan Azlan Shah tournament

Post by ssp »

Yes, I saw most of the players (live and on TV) and in my opinion, Sardar was more effective than all of them. The opposition is much tougher now -apart from Asia, which is really poor.

Sardar has played in defence, midfield and attack and for several years held our team together. Anyway, it's my honest opinion so it's ok if you don't agree.
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Re: Sultan Azlan Shah tournament

Post by arjun2761 »

Watched most of the Ireland placement match and India were the far superior side that it's hard to fathom how we lost to them earlier. At one point, in the later stages of the match, the circle penetration were something like 16-1 and the shots on goal were 11-1 in our favor.

We did seem to tire out a little towards the end of the match but otherwise our play on the field looked like we were toying with the #10 Irish.
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Re: Sultan Azlan Shah tournament

Post by ssp »

Team selected for 2019 SAS cup.
No coach appointed yet, so most likely to be David John ('Low' performance director!!) in charge.

As usual, Mandeep is retained. Soon as I see this guy in the team , I groan. Amit is also retained despite his atrocious play in the WC QF v Holland. Our selectors are not serious about results if they continually select this type of 'quality'

All of the experienced players are 'injured'! Some of these guys seem to have been injured for almost a year! Joke excuse (just be honest and say they are being dropped. But then they would have to explain the retention of Mandeep & Amit, who never seem to get injured and also show zero improvement despite 5+years of experience).

Having had a moan, I have to say that this is not a bad team. Apart from the 2 guys mentioned above and lack of alternative drag flicker (only Varun can be classed as a drag flicker), it looks as good a team as any we have put out for the past few years. I hope all the younger guys (especially Sumit Kumar and Shilanand Lakra) have a stellar tournament.

Goalkeepers
Krishan B Pathak, P R Sreejesh
Defenders
Gurinder Singh, Surender Kumar (Vice Captain), Varun Kumar, Birendra Lakra, Amit Rohidas, Kothajit Singh Khadangbam
Midfielders
Hardik Singh, Nilakanta Sharma, Sumit, Vivek Sagar Prasad, Manpreet Singh (Captain)
Forwards
Mandeep Singh, Simranjeet Singh, Gurjant Singh, Shilanand Lakra, Sumit Kumar
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Re: Sultan Azlan Shah tournament

Post by jaydeep »

As per the report, the team will have to play the first two matches with one player less since Akashdeep was suspended for two matches by the IHF for his behavior after India’s quarterfinal loss against the Netherlands in the World Cup ... The suspension will be enforced even though Akashdeep will be absent owing to injury.
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Re: Sultan Azlan Shah tournament

Post by sameerph »

That is strange. The suspension was to the player, so why is team penalized ? So, it will be 1 player less in overall team of 16 or we will be on the field with only 10 players ?
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Re: Sultan Azlan Shah tournament

Post by jaydeep »

I think we will be on the field with 10 players as the IHF penalized the team for the player's behavior.
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Re: Sultan Azlan Shah tournament

Post by arjun2761 »

jaydeep wrote: Fri Mar 08, 2019 5:18 am I think we will be on the field with 10 players as the IHF penalized the team for the player's behavior.
You have to be kidding! In almost, all other sports, when a player is suspended, he is suspended from participating in the next match(es). The team does not play the whole match with one player short. Of course, that happens in soccer with an in-game red card but the team is short of a player only for the rest of that game. The player may then be suspended for another game but the team plays with 11 players.
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Re: Sultan Azlan Shah tournament

Post by Atithee »

I agree. Never heard of any such thing ever.
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Re: Sultan Azlan Shah tournament

Post by sameerph »

We started with a 2-0 win over Japan yesterday. Goals by Varun Kumar and Simranjeet Singh.Japan were Asian games champions. So, good to see us negotiate this match safely.

We play Korea today.
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Re: Sultan Azlan Shah tournament

Post by ssp »

1-1 draw with Korea, with the equaliser conceded with seconds remaining. No change there.

No way of watching the matches as only Malaysian channels have the broadcasting rights. Reports seem to suggest panic at the end as we conceded 5 PCs in the last few minutes. Still a draw is better than usual in matches like these, where we have the better of 3/4 game and then inexplicably we lose the plot and concede right at the end.

We are the highest ranked team here, but there is a possibility of messing up at some point.
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Re: Sultan Azlan Shah tournament

Post by Sin Hombre »

There is a certainty of messing up at some point.
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Re: Sultan Azlan Shah tournament

Post by Atithee »

We will even mess up the certainty of messing up in yet unforeseen ways to screw up.
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Re: Sultan Azlan Shah tournament

Post by sameerph »

We beat hosts Malaysia 4-2 today. Goals by Sumit, Sumit Kumar, Mandeep and Varun Kumar.

This is a good win considering how we have struggled against Malaysia most of the time. We are now tied at top with Korea with 7 points from 3 matches. Malaysia and Canada are just behind with 6 points. Japan and Poland have lost all 3 of their matches. We have matches against Canada and Poland left in league phase. Hopefully, we will comfortably win both the matches and go thru to the final without any trouble.
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